John Benjamins Publishing Company
Chapter 9. Candidates’ use of Twitter during the 2016 Austrian presidential campaign
Abstract
This paper explores the Twitter use by the candidates of the 2016 Austrian presidential campaign which lasted for almost one year and required three ballots in sequence. The data corpus consists of all Twitter messages the candidates posted during the campaign. Drawing on theoretical considerations regarding politicians’ and political parties’ use of internet communication technologies (esp. the innovation vs. the normalization hypotheses), the paper explores the content level, the use of rhetorical actions, and selected aspects of the interpersonal level of the data. Results show that the candidates’ communication strategies cannot fully be explained by either of the two hypotheses and hence that none of them can predict electoral success in this specific political campaign. It is concluded that the two proposed hypotheses concerning the use of internet communication technologies in the field of politics are too broad and that they have to be modified to account for contextual aspects of specific political communication situations.
Abstract
This paper explores the Twitter use by the candidates of the 2016 Austrian presidential campaign which lasted for almost one year and required three ballots in sequence. The data corpus consists of all Twitter messages the candidates posted during the campaign. Drawing on theoretical considerations regarding politicians’ and political parties’ use of internet communication technologies (esp. the innovation vs. the normalization hypotheses), the paper explores the content level, the use of rhetorical actions, and selected aspects of the interpersonal level of the data. Results show that the candidates’ communication strategies cannot fully be explained by either of the two hypotheses and hence that none of them can predict electoral success in this specific political campaign. It is concluded that the two proposed hypotheses concerning the use of internet communication technologies in the field of politics are too broad and that they have to be modified to account for contextual aspects of specific political communication situations.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Theoretical and methodological perspectives
- Chapter 1. Expanding pragmatics 27
- Chapter 2. Computer-mediated discourse in context 47
- Chapter 3. Cyberpragmatics in the age of locative media 75
- Chapter 4. Interpreting emoji pragmatics 107
- Chapter 5. Speech acts and the dissemination of knowledge in social networks 145
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Part II. The discursive management of self on the internet
- Chapter 6. Humour and self-presentation on WhatsApp profile status 175
- Chapter 7. Inviting a purchase 207
- Chapter 8. Online nicks, impoliteness, and Jewish identity in Israeli Russian conflict discourse 235
-
Part III. Pragmatics of internet-mediated texts
- Chapter 9. Candidates’ use of Twitter during the 2016 Austrian presidential campaign 259
- Chapter 10. A study on how cultural and gender parameters affect emoticon distribution, usage and frequency in American and Japanese online discourse 287
- Chapter 11. Migration through the English-Greek translated press 321
- Name index 343
- Subject index 347
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Theoretical and methodological perspectives
- Chapter 1. Expanding pragmatics 27
- Chapter 2. Computer-mediated discourse in context 47
- Chapter 3. Cyberpragmatics in the age of locative media 75
- Chapter 4. Interpreting emoji pragmatics 107
- Chapter 5. Speech acts and the dissemination of knowledge in social networks 145
-
Part II. The discursive management of self on the internet
- Chapter 6. Humour and self-presentation on WhatsApp profile status 175
- Chapter 7. Inviting a purchase 207
- Chapter 8. Online nicks, impoliteness, and Jewish identity in Israeli Russian conflict discourse 235
-
Part III. Pragmatics of internet-mediated texts
- Chapter 9. Candidates’ use of Twitter during the 2016 Austrian presidential campaign 259
- Chapter 10. A study on how cultural and gender parameters affect emoticon distribution, usage and frequency in American and Japanese online discourse 287
- Chapter 11. Migration through the English-Greek translated press 321
- Name index 343
- Subject index 347
